


Nunquam Ave Atque Vale

by Elefwin



Category: Agent Pendergast Series - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-06 01:26:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5397692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elefwin/pseuds/Elefwin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing in the Pendergast family dies for certain at the first try. [spoilers up to & for Crimson Shore]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nunquam Ave Atque Vale

Aloysius Pendergast had not lamented the death of Diogenes, his only brother. To do so would have been... wrong for too many good reasons.  
Stromboli's fiery breath had pierced him, burned him and dried him out so thoroughly that even now Aloysius sometimes feels the fine ashes inside. The ashes are also wrong, for no one had ever searched for the body. His parents and friends, Enoch Leng, great-aunt Cornelia, Helen, Alban – all of them, long before or after their time, but are definitely and finally dead, laid to rest in peace. From within Aloysius can "resurrect" them all – can reconstruct them with an uncanny precision, his memory is truly exceptional... But that is it: memories remain just memories, perfect and complete.

Diogenes alone is something more than a mere memory. Every time – like a reopened grave, like a magical box, like a fresh wound – something new is revealed to Aloysius, a new part of... himself. To presume otherwise would be madness, and he is still sane enough. Enough not to harbor illusions. Enough, Aloysius hopes deep within his mind and heart, to be careful about these revelations.  
Not enough to stop, though.  
Diogenes is his abyss, the infinite of his very own, his dark mirror, a secret kept in the wide open.  
The ashes stick in his throat, the magic mirror turns inside out, and the door in his heart opens, again and again.

He is kissing Constance and knows – knows his brother had never touched her _like this_ – and hastily retreats, because for the first time he could not help himself and reached out for it wide awake, in the flesh...  
For the first time?  
Aloysius picks up the shards – very carefully, never cutting himself, and it is wrong as well. He finishes the treasured wine alone, washes down the faintest burnt flavor.

A lock, picked with taunting mastery, lies in the palm of his hand – harmless, dangerous, another shard of the story he'd been so painstakingly denying. Aloysius does not _remember_ the ruins, the labyrinth beneath, the lock, but he cannot in all honesty claim he had never been here before.

He warns Constance of the danger, for there remains a possibility that he is still compos mentis and Diogenes has come back from the doorway to hell yet again. He does not speak nor think of it as a hope.

There's enough salt and water in the ocean for an eternity of tears unshed.


End file.
